8 Police Officers Hurt in Clash at Harlem Mosque

By RICHARD PEREZ-PENA

Published: January 11, 1994

New York City's new Police Commissioner ordered an inquiry yesterday into the Police Department's handling of a confrontation between the police and members of a Harlem mosque in which eight officers were injured and one officer's gun was taken away.

Commissioner William J. Bratton said the internal investigation would examine the unorthodox way the episode concluded, why no one was arrested and why the officers, who were responding to a report of an armed robbery at the mosque, were not told that it was a "sensitive location," a designation intended to help prevent confrontations.

The announcement of the investigation came on Mr. Bratton's first day as Police Commissioner. He spent much of the day visiting precincts in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn and discussing the Police Department budget with his aides and those of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

On Sunday night, even before he assumed command of the 31,000-member department, he was at the scene of the disturbance, conferring with police officials and the Mayor. He also visited the police officers hospitalized after the disturbance at the mosque, where the robbery report turned out to be false. Standoff, but No Arrests

Several members of the Nation of Islam and their supporters met to discuss the incident last night at Sylvia's Restaurant, at Lenox Avenue and 126th Street. Like Mr. Bratton, they demanded answers. Contradicting much of the account given by the Commissioner, they attributed the incident entirely to the police, who they said had entered the mosque during services.

"The police violated their own regulations, went in without proper personnel, had their guns drawn," said C. Vernon Mason, a lawyer representing the Nation of Islam. "Women and children were there. They attacked members of the mosque."

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who also attended the meeting, said, "I think if it was any other religious institution in another community, coming in during services, this would not have been tolerated."

After a brief brawl, the confrontation Sunday at Muhammad's Mosque at 2033 Fifth Avenue became a standoff, as the congregation retreated into the third-floor mosque. The police, under the command of David W. Scott, who was promoted today from Chief of Department to First Deputy Commissioner, set up a command post in a supermarket on the ground floor of the building.

"We managed to delay them until Chief Scott got there," Minister Conrad Muhammad, who was in the mosque, said yesterday. "He had a calm head."

According to the police, the next few hours were spent trying to coax the Muslims out of the building. Mr. Mason, however, said that the group had been held hostageby the police.

The standoff was brought to a negotiated close, in which congregation members filed past officers for possible identification as suspects in the confrontation, the Commissioner said.

While at least one officer identified one of the Muslim men as a suspect in the disturbance, he was not arrested, under the terms of the agreement reached with the leaders of the mosque, Mr. Bratton said. Under the agreement, the mosque's leaders were supposed to help police identify and find any possible suspects, but yesterday they would not help find the man who was singled out at the scene, he said.

Mr. Bratton said it was not clear whether the officer's identification was firm enough to justify an arrest, and he was not sure whether the man identified was suspected of striking an officer, taking an officer's gun or some other offense.

He said that the officer declined to answer questions from investigators yesterday, but would speak to them today. Under their contract, officers do not have to answer questions about their own conduct until 48 hours after an incident in question.

Mr. Bratton said that he spoke yesterday to Phil Caruso, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the police officers' union, and that Mr. Caruso had wanted to know why no one had been arrested. Joseph Mancini, a spokesman for the union, said: "If no arrests are made, I think the P.B.A. will be outraged. We have some concern over how police officers are supposed to react when they get a call about a felony in progress, and they get assaulted by the people at the location." False Robbery Report

The incident began at 4:02 P.M. with a false report to 911 of an armed robbery at the mosque, the police said. The caller gave a lengthy description of the two men who were supposed to have been involved in the robbery, and even named one of them, said John Miller, the department's Deputy Commissioner for Public Information.

"On review in the light of day," Mr. Bratton said, "any of us sitting listening to that call would question its legitimacy."

The department's dispatch computers would have informed the dispatcher that the mosque had been designated a sensitive location and, under department policy, the dispatcher should have notified patrol units of that fact, but did not, Mr. Bratton said. Officials declined to name the dispatcher, who Mr. Miller said was a civilian.

The policy grew out of an incident on April 14, 1972, similar to Sunday's disturbance. In the 1972 episode, in response to a fake call of an officer in trouble, the police raided Muhammad's Mosque No. 7, at 116th Street and Lenox Avenue. A fight ensued at the Nation of Islam mosque, an officer's gun was taken from him, and Officer Philip W. Cardillo was shot and killed.

One Nation of Islam member was tried on murder charges and acquitted. Another's trial for assault ended in a mistrial and the charges were dropped.

In response to the 1972 incident, the Police Department adopted a cautious policy on 17 "sensitive locations," including black Muslim mosques and meeting places for such militant groups as the Black Panthers. The policy, intended to prevent confrontation, called for officers not to enter the designated locations until a commander was on the scene. Officials said they did not know how many locations carried the designation now.

"We will take a look at that protocol, reevaluate it in 1994," Mr. Bratton said yesterday. "We are staying very open-minded about this at this particular time, re-examining why it was put into place in the first place. Is it still appropriate to have it now, 22 years later?" Unaware of the Mosque

Mr. Bratton said the officers arriving at the address did not know that it was a mosque, much less a sensitive location. The ground floor of the building is occupied by Bravo Supermarket. The mosque shares the third and top floor with a boxing gym.

But members of the congregation insisted that when the police entered, they knew the location was a mosque.

Photos: William J. Bratton was sworn in as New York's Police Commissioner yesterday by William J. Sullivan, Chief of Personnel, at Police Headquarters. The new Commissioner ordered an inquiry into the department's handling of a confrontation between the police and members of a Harlem mosque in which eight officers were hurt. (John Sotomayor/The New York Times)(pg. B1); On his first day as Police Commissioner, William J. Bratton visited the 84th Precinct station house in Brooklyn, where he signed the command log. (Ruby Washington/The New York Times)(pg. B3)